ESL Students and Effective Techniques - Research Paper Example

Research Paper: Effective Techniques for Making Adult ESL Students Interactive in the Classroom

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to determine some effective techniques that help adult ESL students to become interactive in the classroom. The research evaluated various articles to synthesize the best ways and solutions to help make adult ESL students interactive in the classroom, participate effectively, and enjoy learning English. The review question that guided the review process was informed from the above position and recognition that studying English precedes best in an interactive setting. The articles reviewed were obtained from the EBSCOhost and ProQuest databases while others were obtained from online scholarly libraries and internet sources. The articles were subjected to a variety of tests for consideration in the review. The research found a significant disconnect in the techniques used to promote student interaction. The techniques utilized different methods while attempting to improve various aspects of student involvement and participation. The findings led to the suggestion that more research should be conducted that will employ the integration of more than one approach. In doing so, the researcher hypothesizes that incorporating more than one approach will ensure improved student participation and involvement hence interaction.

Introduction

ESL students encounter many challenges when they study English as a second language and become less interactive in the classroom (Madrigal-Hopes et al., 2014). Teaching ESL students is not only based on lecturing, but teachers may also set many strategies in the classrooms to make sure that students adopt English skills and comprehend lessons. ESL students’ interaction is important in the classroom to give teachers an idea that those students understand, enjoy, and practice what they learned (Pan, 2017). To make that happen, ESL teachers seek to find effective techniques and better ways of making adult ESL students interactive in the classrooms.

Importance of the Study

The world is composed of diverse individuals regarding race, nationality, ethnicity, and language that are fundamental to the society of the individuals. Schools consist of multicultural students that make a community. Students from diverse cultures require communicating effectively with the others necessitating the need to develop a common language to facilitate communication (Pan, 2017). Learning English enables the students to communicate with their peers and instructors to move forward the school objectives and vision. The students that learn English as the second language require effective methods for learning English to participate fully in the school community. The methods of learning English as a second language and the related programs aimed at achieving the goal of proficiency in the English language (Madrigal-Hopes et al., 2014). English second learners do not necessarily mean students from primitive cultures and nations neither are all immigrants. Some of the students come from developed nations with a strong foundation of education yearning to acquire proficiency in the English language to facilitate communication at a global level (Pan, 2017). The role of educational institutions offering English as second language learning aims to provide opportunities for quality education that meets the needs of the respective students at an individual and collective level. Society is made up of people who interact more within a given region than with the others outside the region. The schools are the student’s society, and the need to communicate and interact with other students regularly necessitates the need to develop effective methods of learning English (Pan, 2017). Most of the adults learning English as their second language are the working class who desire to improve their language proficiency to meet the communication needs to a wide range of people and cultures.

Background

Interactive techniques have been applied in student classes where English is taught as a second language (Pan, 2017). The techniques have proved successful in inculcating multiple benefits that include making the teacher assess the student’s mastery of the content easily and quickly. Most students will not effectively learn a material until they are asked to put it into practice (Rajaram & B. Collins, 2013). The assessments are interactive in their respect and drive interactive studying as well. Interactive learning revives the students from their passivity of listening to a lecture while taking notes rather than becoming attentive and engaged in the learning process (Madrigal-Hopes et al., 2014). The students have reported that the interactive sessions are fun and more effective than the traditional lecture methods.

Interactive methods enable students to think critically and creatively, speak with partners, express personal ideas, explore personal attitudes and values, give and receive feedback and reflect upon learning (Pan, 2017; Jovanovic & Chiong, 2013). Interactive learning strategies have several benefits to the instructor as well. The strategies enable the instructor to spend an increased amount of time helping the students to develop their understanding and skills and support surface learning. The instructor will provide the students with the opportunity to apply and demonstrate the contents that they have learned and receive immediate feedback from peers and the instructor (Rajaram & B. Collins, 2013).

Traditional lectures have proved effective in helping the instructors to manage their time effectively. Previous research studies have, however, reported that the traditional 50-minute lectures are ineffective in promoting deep and lasting student learning especially for abstract subjects as language. The researchers have as a result defined lectures as the transfer of notes from the lecturers’ notebooks to the students’ (Rajaram & B. Collins, 2013). The students in most cases daydream during the lectures. The traditional lecture method is furthermore ineffective in attracting and retaining student attention. The students’ concentration declines after the first 10 to 15 minutes.

The above text indicates that interactive learning promotes effective learning with more benefits than traditional lecture methods. The challenge, however, originates from the ways, methods, and techniques to make the students interactive in the classroom to achieve an equally effective student learning. The challenge led to the formulation of the questions below that will form the major topic of the present review of literature aimed at developing the effective techniques for making adult ESL students interactive in the classroom.

Questions

• What is the relationship between English teaching methods and adult students’ interactions in the classroom?
• How should ESL teachers interact with adult students?
• What kinds of class activities are appropriate for adult ESL students to make them interactive in the classrooms?

Guiding Research Question (GRQ)

• How do adult ESL students become interactive in the classrooms?

Method of Review

The articles were retrieved from peer-reviewed journal databases including ProQuest and EBSCOhost. The search was made under the keywords ESL, interactive, learning, effective, and adult learning. The search was set to full-text and peer reviewed. The sources selected were first tested for credibility and relevance before inclusion for use in the literature synthesis. The relevance was tested as a matter of time where any document published more than ten years from the time of conducting the present review was rejected. More publications were obtained from Google Scholar and Google books. Google scholar articles were also subjected to the same credibility criteria as from other databases to ensure credibility and relevance. The search results were tested for the availability of full-text versions of the articles before they were considered for the review. The Google books publications considered the books that had all the pages accessible and had at least one review to ensure the credibility of the source. The books were subjected to similar relevance test of time as the other articles discussed in the text. Other documents were obtained through a direct internet search and from relevant organizational and institutional websites. A random search of the documents such as those published by educational institutions in the UK, US and other European and Asian countries teaching English language to the adults were considered for the study. The internet documents with the extensions .gov, .edu, .org were found under this category subject to the credibility criteria explained above.

Results

A random search on the EBSCOhost database with the keywords adult, ESL, interactive, and classroom with the search limited to dates returned 609 academic journals, 92 magazines, 57 reviews, 26 books and 17 eBooks. A similar search on the ProQuest database returned 19 scholarly journals, 17 reports, 14 dissertations, four trade journals, and three working papers. The EBSCOhost search indicated the first from which 11 articles were selected for review after subsequent credibility and relevance tests were performed. The search results obtained through the ProQuest search indicated that four articles met the credibility and relevance requires being considered in the review.

The digital platforms have enabled the implementation of many dynamic approaches of establishing interactive learning in language learning classes (Ananyeva, 2014; Almasri, 2013). The approaches mostly used include podcasting, interactive imaging, e-portfolios, slide shows, and blogs. Most recently blogfolios have emerged as an additional digital method for facilitating language learning, especially in adult ESL classes. Blogfolios are online blogs that are organized in an electronic portfolio. Blogfolios incorporate the interactive images, online weblog conversations, and podcasts.

Ananyeva (2014) studied the effectiveness of the interactive learning from blogs. The researchers found that blogging helps the ESL learners develop audience awareness and identify their audience categories other than the teacher. Ananyeva (2014) reports that blogs have been used successfully to improve classroom interaction, class participation, reading and writing in English, creativity, and self-expression. The researcher recommended that teachers of English learners utilize the blogs to improve participation and interaction between the students and teachers.

Blogs have multiple benefits to improving the learners’ understanding of English through improving the student’s vocabulary, writing and reading and creating communication between the learners that is critical for building a strong school society (Ananyeva, 2014). The researchers found that blogs give the students an opportunity to express themselves in writing for a local and global audience (Lu, Li & Du, 2009). The students have the opportunity to reflect on their readings outside the classroom environment (Huang & Newbern, 2012). The students connect what they have learned to their lives and passions effectively. Blogfolios provide new opportunities that combine blogs and e-portfolios with new applications and outcomes in an ESL classroom (Ananyeva, 2014). Blogfolios help students build discussion topics that they discuss in class to improve student interaction, involvement, and participation.

A research study conducted to determine the learning strategy to improve English literacy among adult learners in a correctional facility at Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup supports the implementation of interactive programs to improve student understanding significantly (Gardner, 2011). The facility enrolls adult males aged between 18 and 60 years who are not native English speakers to its ESL program. The learners come from Central America, México, and Puerto Rico. Over 99% of the students speak Spanish as their first language (Gardner, 2011).

The correctional facility defines English literacy as the ability to use the printed material or written information in English to function in society to achieve personal goals and develop one’s knowledge and potential. The program implemented to teach the ESL students in the correctional facility aim at making the students literate in the English language (Gardner, 2011). The researchers note that students for the traditional cultures are polite and respectful and complete class work promptly. The researchers report that engaging the students is often a challenge to the teachers. The challenge intensifies when the students come from cultures where education is not a priority (Gardner, 2017).

Gardner (2011) recognized that adult education and learning English proceeds through four parts including listening, speaking, reading and writing. The four parts altogether participate to ensure effective student understanding of the English language (Gardner, 2014). The above strategies appeal to the receptive and productive sense of the student learning (Gardner, 2014). The program has employed interactive language activities such as sight word bingo, oral practice with book reports, ports, spontaneous conversation about favorite foods, and role plays to improve student participation, involvement and learning of English language (Gardner, 2011). The researchers warn that the skills take a lot of practice and patience to acquire.

The adult inmates involved in the study reported that they are more willing to write English words than they are willing to speak while others were more willing to speak in English than they were willing to write (Gardner, 2011). The researchers reported that the success of the students depended on the ability of the instructor to integrate all the four skills of writing, reading, speaking and listening and provide the students time to practice.

Researchers have studied the interaction promoted through journal writing in adult ESL classrooms. Research has proven journal writing as a beneficial tool in promoting reflective practice, authentic learning, and interactive engagement among the learners and teachers. Journal writing engages ESL learners in using language in meaningful and authentic contexts. The learners develop their communicative fluency as a result. Journal writing among ESL learners provide students with meaningful learning contexts for social interaction that is crucial for the development of a stronger society. Besides journal learning provide the learners with a conscious and constructive interaction for language learning and instruction to facilitate the meaning-making process through reflection.

The study was facilitated by a practitioner in ESL instruction to revisit and examine the approach of journal writing to improve interaction in an ESL class. The practitioner recognizes that journal learning enables the learners and their instructors to create an environment with a sense of community and promote interaction as a result. Journal writing is a learner-oriented curriculum strategy that engages the students beyond the predetermined roles of learners and teachers as defined in responsive interaction methods. The practitioner notes that it is essential for the teachers and the learner to create space for them to identify their positions in the interaction. The study utilized an advanced ESL class at a community-based adult basic education program located the southwest. The learners were level 6-7 according to the placement test applied to assess their proficiency levels in all the four areas of English skills. Most of the adult learners were Spanish speakers from Peru, México, and Colombia. The researchers recruited 25 adult ESL learners 4 of who came from Asian countries. The students were multicultural with students from China, Japan, Korea, Egypt, Palestine and Arabic speakers.

Qi & Steen (2012) investigated the effectiveness of group models in achieving success in English learning classes. The researchers utilized the achieving Success Everyday Model group model and reported a significant improvement in student GPA in ESL among 75% of the participants. The researchers note that the American schools have increasingly enrolled students speaking English as a second language in their schools (Qi & Steen, 2012). The researchers note that the trend is even higher in the US K-12 schools.

The researchers note that group learning is important in promoting interaction among ESL learners. The group model enables the instructors to assess the student’s academic, personal, social, and career development. The ASE group model is a model created to address the students’ self-esteem through addressing the student’s personal, academic, and social development in the school settings (Qi & Steen, 2012). The model is semi-structured and flexible for adjustments to fit the individual and classroom specific demands. The study recruited and split 16 adult ESL students into two groups. The instructors had experience in managing ESL groups with different student populations and different socioeconomic backgrounds. The researchers found that ESL students require counseling to improve their self-esteem in classrooms and participate effectively in the classroom interaction (Qi & Steen, 2012). A favorable self-esteem builds student confidence and attitudes towards self and social interactions.

Atamturk, Dimililer & Atamturk (2017) found it necessary to bring the conversational language used outside the class to the classroom to improve student interaction in the classroom. The researchers noted that the language used in class is different from that used in conversations outside of class. The language used in classrooms is a type of institutional talk that often discourages interaction through conversational exchanges. The researchers note that task-based language learning is superior in increasing student’s active involvement and enhancing interlanguage development. The researchers utilized play extracts to provide ESL students with rich resources to promote interaction in ESL classrooms. The extracts enable the students to start a discussion and dialogue about the plot, characters, settings, costumes, and conflicts. The researchers propose that the students should begin by imitating the characters in a speech to acquire certain words and expressions and use the same later in their lives spontaneously.

Atamturk, Dimililer & Atamturk (2017) note that the student’s self-confidence is necessary for learning English because it provides the students an opportunity to be somebody else and apply the expressions. The dramas are best suited to adult ESL speakers who do not want to speak in public for fear of inadequate mastery of the English language. The dramas appeal to the student’s physical and emotional involvement, participation and engagement in learning improving the interaction as a result.

The research was conducted with sophomore students who had had a background learning of the history of English literature as a lecture based. The students were enrolled in a new course design in the history of English literature two that required the students to practice writing scripts, acting and performing in the theater. The intervention lasted 16 weeks and utilized extracts from the plays Romeo and Juliet, king Lear, the importance of being honest, the merchant of Venice, the ditches of Amalfi, murder in the cathedral, Frankenstein, Matilda, a Christmas carol and the picture of Dorian Grey (Atamturk, Dimililer & Atamturk, 2017). The participants read the books in one week and decided on one and got into groups based on their favorite novels and engaged in collaborative script writing for three weeks. The participants would later identify their costumes and act out the plays in class. The researchers reported participant’s happiness with the intervention (Atamturk, Dimililer & Atamturk, 2017). The participants had the opportunity to compare the course with the previous traditional lecture method. A significant portion of the participants reported disinterest and passivity in the lecture-based method and an increased mental and physical engagement in the intervention.

The research studies above utilize a classroom setting employing the intervention of professionals experienced in utilizing various intervention methods in ESL settings. The participants range from 20 to 25 reminiscent of a typical classroom population. Most of the studies investigated the various interaction techniques to a multicultural class a greater percentage of which comprised of Spanish speakers. The studies note the need for the instructors in ESL classes to utilize various methods that improve student interaction through a focus on involvement, engagement, and participation in the learning process (Madrigal-Hopes et al., 2014). The studies recognize that necessity of the interactive methods to appeal to the physical and emotional senses of student learning. Some of the studies propose the use of technology to implement interactive learning while other studies propose the use of traditional methods of play extracts and fun plays. In all the studies the focus was made to the student’s ability to speak, write and express themselves in the English language.

An article from the EBSCOhost database that proved credible for the review was not included because the year of publication fell outside the required time frames. The study was conducted to investigate the strategies to help ESL nursing students to build their verbal and written language skills. The study was published in 2003 that did not meet the requirements for inclusion in the present review that required that articles be not older than ten years to ensure relevance.

Discussion

The study aimed to investigate and synthesize the information regarding effective techniques of making adult ESL students interactive in the classrooms. The study intended to evaluate the proposed techniques and propose the techniques that are in the view of the researcher informed by the amount of data presented in the research studies met the required index of effectiveness. The studies proposed a variety of methods to improve student interaction in the classroom while noting that interaction improves student mastery of English language. Some of the proposed techniques pointed out the need for technological innovation and implementation while others pointed to the need to appeal to the physical and emotional involvement of the students in the learning process. The studies note the differences in pedagogical approach for teaching ESL in adult classrooms to young students’ classes.

The use of technology to promote student effectiveness enabled the students to express themselves in written language but does not to improve the students speaking and listening skills that are equally crucial to the mastery of English. The technology provides the students with an opportunity to start discussions and use the English in contexts that are outside the classroom (Yoon, 2008). The approach also provides the student with additional avenues to experience learning in real time through the use of photos and videos.

The traditional methods of promoting interaction through the use of book reports, ports, spontaneous conversation about favorite foods, and role plays promote student listening and speaking with little attention to the written English. The above techniques of interactive learning do not appeal to the student emotional involvement as proposed by other studies discussed in the above sections. The failure to meet the four requirements to succeed in learning English makes the technique fall short of achieving its objectives that aim at improving English literacy in ESL students.

Journal writing is almost similar to blogfolios in improving ESL student literacy. Journal writing enables students to express themselves in English and respond to other peoples write-ups. Journal writing improves student writing skills with less focus on the listening skills. The discussions that originate from the discussions of the journals improve English speaking skills. The technique does not appeal to the student’s emotional involvement in the process of learning, as a result, fall short of giving the desired results of English literacy.

The method that had the potential of improving student involvement, participation and interaction in the classroom is the use of play extracts that required to students to act out the parts in groups in class. The technique builds the student confidence in the classroom and enables the student's to apply the English skills in virtual environments while acting out the play. The technique appeals to the student’s physical and emotional involvement and allows for student development in the four critical parts mentioned in the section above (Vaičiūnienė, & Užpalienė, 2013).

The number of articles available that have discussed strategies for implementing interactive learning in ESL classrooms indicates how important the topic is to present pedagogical approaches to teaching ESL. The researchers have proposed different methods to indicate the lack of consensus on the effective techniques of establishing and promoting student interaction in ESL classrooms. The studies are consistent in need to improve the student self-confidence before commencing with the studies and participation (Pan, 2017; Vaičiūnienė, & Užpalienė, 2013). The studies propose single methods, and none have integrated different methods in their studies. The above finding informs the need for more research about the outcomes of incorporating the traditional methods and modern methods applying technology in promoting student interaction (Pan, 2017). The researcher hypothesizes that incorporation of technological pedagogical methods and traditional methods of student interaction such as the use of plays would significantly improve student mastery of the learning content.

Conclusion

The review evaluated a variety of articles written to propose different methods of achieving student interaction among ESL learners. The review recognized the ineffectiveness of the present strategies to achieving English literacy among ESL learners and the importance of the topic to facilitating global communication. The evidence indicates the lack of consensus about the effective techniques of improving student interaction. The evidence is however strong because it provides areas of research concerning the importance of self-confidence in facilitating student interaction. More research should be conducted to harmonize the several proposed methods in an attempt to establish a consensus regarding the techniques.

Interactive methods enable students to think critically and creatively, speak with partners, express personal ideas, explore personal attitudes and values, give and receive feedback and reflect upon learning (Pan, 2017; Jovanovic & Chiong, 2013). Interactive learning strategies have several benefits to the instructor as well. The strategies enable the instructor to spend an increased amount of time helping the students to develop their understanding and skills and support surface learning. The instructor will provide the students with the opportunity to apply and demonstrate the contents that they have learned and receive immediate feedback from peers and the instructor (Rajaram & B. Collins, 2013).

Traditional lectures have proved effective in helping the instructors to manage their time effectively. Previous research studies have, however, reported that the traditional 50-minute lectures are ineffective in promoting deep and lasting student learning especially for abstract subjects as language. The researchers have as a result defined lectures as the transfer of notes from the lecturers’ notebooks to the students’ (Rajaram & B. Collins, 2013). The students in most cases daydream during the lectures. The traditional lecture method is furthermore ineffective in attracting and retaining student attention. The students’ concentration declines after the first 10 to 15 minutes.

The above text indicates that interactive learning promotes effective learning with more benefits than traditional lecture methods. The challenge, however, originates from the ways, methods, and techniques to make the students interactive in the classroom to achieve an equally effective student learning. The challenge led to the formulation of the questions below that will form the major topic of the present review of literature aimed at developing the effective techniques for making adult ESL students interactive in the classroom.

Questions

• What is the relationship between English teaching methods and adult students’ interactions in the classroom?
• How should ESL teachers interact with adult students?
• What kinds of class activities are appropriate for adult ESL students to make them interactive in the classrooms?

Guiding Research Question (GRQ)

• How do adult ESL students become interactive in the classrooms?

Method of Review

The articles were retrieved from peer-reviewed journal databases including ProQuest and EBSCOhost. The search was made under the keywords ESL, interactive, learning, effective, and adult learning. The search was set to full-text and peer reviewed. The sources selected were first tested for credibility and relevance before inclusion for use in the literature synthesis. The relevance was tested as a matter of time where any document published more than ten years from the time of conducting the present review was rejected. More publications were obtained from Google Scholar and Google books. Google scholar articles were also subjected to the same credibility criteria as from other databases to ensure credibility and relevance. The search results were tested for the availability of full-text versions of the articles before they were considered for the review. The Google books publications considered the books that had all the pages accessible and had at least one review to ensure the credibility of the source. Read More